


Interlude at a coffee shop

by Roadsterguy



Category: XCOM: Chimera Squad
Genre: Accounting, Alien/Human Relationships, Bill & Ted (Movies) References, First Dates, Gen, Movie Night, Nonbinary Character, Online Dating, Other, overpriced coffee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28158405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadsterguy/pseuds/Roadsterguy
Summary: First dates are always so tricky.  Especially when you're not the same species.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Interlude at a coffee shop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kahvi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/gifts).



"Tell me a little about yourself." Lyssa put on a gentle smile out of instinct. Wait - did sectoids smile? She desperately tried to cast her mind back on the listicle she had read about the various aliens yesterday. She should have read a sectoid-specific one. _No hot dogs_ \- well, they were in a coffee shop, that wasn't about to come up. Just like her brain, to retrieve the most useless piece of information.

The sectoid - _Zarthan_ , that's what they had said to shorten their lengthy name to - pulled their lips back, doing a fairly good imitation of a human smile. "Well, not much to say. I was bred in the waning days of the occupation. I suppose my story is like a lot of other sectoids - we got dumped on the street without much instruction when the Eternals left. I'm really indebted to the Alien Rehabilitation Alliance. Thanks to them, I have a place to live, clothing, and the training for my job. I'm an accountant at First Xeno Bank."

"Oh, yes, I give to the ARA!" Lyssa said, too quickly. Drat, she was sounding way too earnest! "I mean - it's really important, isn't it, to get along. There's only one planet for us!" Not the first time, Lyssa wondered what happened to all of the other planets, the ones the original aliens came from. Well, it can't have been good, they all came here!

"Well put. So tell me what you do for fun?"

"Medium nonfat latte for Lyssa!" the Muton bellowed from the bar, before she could answer. Mutons made good retail workers. They were fiercely loyal and took no shit from troublesome customers. Humans in private security positions grumbled that they were being forced out of their jobs, and it made Lyssa uneasy. Surely those who were best at any given job should do it... but that was easy for her to say, none of the alien species seemed to have any aptitude for - or was it interest in? - clothing design. Not to the extent that it challenged her job. "Large mocha for Zarthan!"

"I'll get yours!" Well, that was very kind of them, Lyssa thought, as Zarthan wound their way through the crowd. This part of Downtown was becoming quite popular, with cafes that catered - not easily - to all species. The difficulty in keeping staples stocked and avoiding cross-contamination was rewarded by as much business as they could handle, with people and aliens coming from all over City 31 - and sometimes from father - to experience cross-species sit-down dining. Even from a very practical standpoint, if a business lunch or dinner involved multiple species, a great deal of awkwardness - and perhaps a trip to the beleaguered hospital - was avoided by an eatery with menus specific to each species. Just as long as nobody split a dessert...

"Thank you!" Lyssa replied, as they set the coffees on the table. "Oh - well, the usual. I go to the museums, take walks by the shore, play AI games with my non-local friends." That sounded so boring, didn't it? Lyssa did, often, fear she was quite boring.

"That's fascinating! I'm just discovering AI games myself!" Zarthan grinned, a very human expression indeed. Sectiods could only read minds with the help of special instruments - amps, was it? - but they could get general gists without aid? If that listicle was to be believed. Could Zarthan tell when their facial expressions were working for her? That was... oddly cool. "Okay, though - I have to ask you the five-million-credit question. Why go on an alien dating site?"

"Well." She exhaled. This was a tricky subject, wasn't it. It was so easy to get pulled into the idea of the _exotic_ and _unusual_ rather than the person under the alien skin, and she had stumbled across other sites - XenoFuck and AlienBabes and ProbeMe - that were less about _dating_ and more about... well. "I don't want to just stay in my bubble, I guess. This is the world we're living in? And it's kind of cool that it's got all sorts of new people in it, and I want to get to know, uh, you guys."

"That's very interesting!" Zarthan took a sip of their mocha, swallowing it with a pleased sigh. "For myself - well." They looked down, almost shyly. "I just... I just really like humans! You guys are," they waved their hand, as if hunting for the right words, "so diverse. So much more so than any of us - I mean, we were all engineered, pretty hard. You're just _out there_ , changing around your genomes - it's hard to even conceive of! And it makes you guys totally unpredictable. Seriously, I never can tell what any of you are going to do. It's amazing. We're not bred to think, you know, but we all want to anyway! And humans are the ones who _really_ kick-start that thought process."

"Like Bill and Ted?" She pointed at the T-shirt on Zarthan's slender frame.

"Yes!" They pulled back slightly, tugging down the shirt to smooth out the graphic on the front. "I've learned so much from these movies! About the way humans think, about morality, about the role of art and music in society - sectoids don't have art or music, we're learning it all from humans."

"I love those classic movies!" she gushed. "I was kinda lucky - my parents had steady jobs in city services, so I lived in a house under the occupation. They had disks of old movies, and I'd watch them all the time. I still have them, and I kinda like having the disks? Even though you can stream some of them from the Central Repository."

"That's how I've been able to see the movies I've seen so far. But it's so difficult to determine which are the most worthwhile! Some of them have been," they sipped their coffee again, thoughtfully, "confusing, morally - I suppose that's the best way of putting it. Hey, if it's not too much to ask - I'd love it if you could show me your favorites? The ones that really have _meaning_ for you? I like you, and I think I'd like the ones you picked."

"Yeah!" She laughed, delighted. "Let's get some Chinese take-out and watch a few flicks." Maybe it was a little forward - but why not? She couldn't think of a better way to spend an evening. And Interplanetary Wok delivered to her flat, with its all-viper delivery fleet. She put on a voice. " _This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship_."

"Beg pardon?" Zarthan cocked their head.

Lyssa laughed again. "Well. I know what movie we're starting with."


End file.
